Rex Stout published his first Nero Wolfe story, Fer-De-Lance, in 1934,
establishing his hero as a brilliant, enormously fat, eccentric detective who
raises orchids, keeps a gourmet table (complete with live-in chef), and rarely
leaves home. Home is "an old brownstone" at 918 W. 35th Street, Manhattan --
an address that has become as real and almost as famous as Sherlock Holmes'
221B Baker Street in London.

In the almost 40 years that Stout described the house (in some forty-eight
stories) in ever increasing detail, both the details of the house and its occupants
shifted about a bit in size and location -- in his first book Archie's room is on
the second floor, across from Wolfe, and Fritz "slept above across from the
plant rooms," and there is an outside elevator leading up to the plant rooms
(which both Stout and I subsequently ignored). Nevertheless, in a few years,
Stout settled into a general image of how life was lived at 918 W. 35th Street.
Fritz moved to the basement, Wolfe remained on the second floor across from
the "North Room," Archie moved to the third floor adjacent to the "South
Room" where we may suppose the orchids had been, and Horstmann moved to
the roof with ten thousand orchids!

Oh, once in a while, things popped up as they were needed -- a fireplace
suddenly (and rather inconveniently for the draftsman) appeared in the front
parlor: Wolfe was angry at a new dictionary; in a rage, he tore it to pieces and
burned it. Oh... where? Uh, in the fireplace in the front parlor. Okay. Hadn't
noticed that before. And a chair pops up across from the coat rack, a pool table
is established in the basement, a window is needed for an escape, this and that.
Rex Stout maintained a mental image of Archie seated to Wolfe's right, while
his consistent descriptions call for Archie to be at the far end of the room (with
a mirror in front of his desk so he can see the room behind him) and the
bookshelves and globe at the other end so that if Wolfe's desk faces the door to
the office (as is common), Archie has to be at Wolfe's left. But Stout calls for
the famous waterfall portrait with a peephole to be behind Wolfe, ergo, Wolfe
is not seated facing the door, and Archie can be place eight feet away and at
right angles as called for in the Master's text. Small details can also be a
problem. Stout has the light switch on the left inside of the door to the office as
you enter, but that would have the door hinged on the wrong side, swinging
into the room and furniture, rather than as I have drawn it, swinging into a wall.
Also, as Stout kept adding needed touches -- a cabinet for fingerprint
equipment, keys, and rubber gloves, with drawers to hold manuscripts, a safe,
filing cabinets, a bathroom (!), and room enough for two rows of chairs in front
of Wolfe's desk plus a large couch -- we end up needing a lot of room and
Archie ends up where I have placed him. Ain't no other way. So this is it.

A word about the occupants:

Nero Wolfe who owns the house was born in Yugoslavia, immigrated to the
United States, and somehow ended up as a licensed detective in New York
City. He is overweight ("a seventh of a ton"), erudite, opinionated, dislikes and
distrusts women, automobiles, and airplanes, and hates to work. Hence, Archie
Goodwin, his chief investigator, right arm, leg man, muscle, and goad who is
also, not too incidently, his Dr. Watson and Boswell. The stories are all in the
first person, narrated by Archie.

Fritz Brenner, the chef,

"... prefers the basement. His den is as big as the
office and front room combined, but over the years it
has got pretty cluttered -- tables with stacks of
magazines, busts of Escoffier and Brillat-Savarin on
stands, framed menus on the walls, a king-size bed, five
chairs, shelves of books (he has 289 cookbooks), a head
of a wild boar he shot in the Vosges, a TV and stereo
cabinet, two large cases of ancient cooking vessels, one
of which he thinks was used by Julius Caesar's chef, and
so on. Wolfe was in the biggest chair by a table...."
(The Doorbell Rang, 1965, p.70)

Meals are serious affairs (no business talk) and lovingly described. I knew an
Argentinean who was a member of a group that met regularly to prepare and
consume a Fritz Brenner dinner!

Theodore Horstmann is neither very developed as a character nor very lovable.
He takes care of the orchids and is grumpy.